


The Old Man and the Sea

by fowo



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Asexual Character, Dream Sequence, Fluff without Plot, Low Chaos Daud, M/M, The Most Self-Indulgent Thing I Have Ever Written, You're Welcome, just take it for what it is, questionmark?, waiting for the end of the world together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-06-17
Packaged: 2018-11-15 03:49:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11222697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fowo/pseuds/fowo
Summary: Sometimes you find something of value among the things that get washed ashore.





	The Old Man and the Sea

**Author's Note:**

> this is the single most self-indulgent thing I have ever written. I will admit it has no plot and makes little sense, it's just two people being together. I wondered about posting this for the longest time because of these reasons; alas, I love it _so damn much_ , and maybe you will, too.

 

**I thought**

**I had no wish**

**to protect you;**

**to conquer you.**

(the accidents of gesture,

                         —Rome)

 

* * *

 

Daud wakes up because he thinks someone is calling his name.

 It's the darkest hour of the night. He is alone in his bed. The ceiling overhead is familiar—he's been seeing it every morning of every day of every month, so many that turned they into years now; it still doesn't feel like home. He hasn't had a home in so many years. This is just a bed in a hut, somewhere in a little town without a name, somewhere in Serkonos. A town without a name, just like he.

 There's moonlight pooling in, and the lulling sound of the waves. It's so quiet, here; no announcements from crackling loudspeakers, no railroads groaning under the weight of carriages, nor the soft shifting sound of transversals around a broken and decomposing city. Daud complained about Dunwall for all the years he had stayed there, but now he finds himself growing anxious with the silence around him. One day, he fears, it will overtake his head.

 He turns around and tries to fall back asleep. He tries to remember what he dreamed of, but he only sees the ocean behind closed eyelids now. Suddenly, the mattress feels damp, and the silence grows too loud. Daud pushes the itchy, thin blanket away and gets out of bed.

 The night is cool, but not unpleasant. He throws a shirt around his shoulders; its cotton coarse and darned many times at the seams and elbows by his steady hands. Without bothering to light up one of the lamps, he grabs his cigarettes from the table, lights one, and leaves into the night.

 His little hut sits by the shore, between the dunes. It's small like the one he grew up in; he knows this but he doesn't dwell on the thought. The beach outside is illuminated by the light of the night, perfectly dividing everything into black and white. The next city is far; too far to see its lights shine hither. He likes his solitude, here. He has been surrounded by people for too long.

 If only the silence wasn't so absolute.

 He wanders along the beach and smokes, not expecting anything to happen, besides tiring himself out enough to go back to sleep, to rise early in the morning again. He walks to the edge of the water, walking through the wet sand. The way it makes way for the shape of his feet feels nice. 

 He stops, exhaling a plume of smoke that gets torn and broken and carried away by the wind that is tugging at his breeches, his hair and shirt. The footsteps he leaves behind are already washed away by the tide rolling in. It feels a little unreal, the realization that there is no proof that he even is here. 

 Again, he thinks he hears his name.

 He stands and smokes, and then flips the dog end into the water. As he looks down, he sees something bright and smooth to his feet, tangled in seaweed. He crouches down and picks it up. As he touches it, he knows more than he sees that it is a piece of bone; old and iron-shod. There's a soft pulling in his left hand, like a cramp, and his finger stiffen. Daud grunts and flinches back, and the rune crumbles between his fingers. It leaves nothing but dust getting picked up by the breeze, blown away and scattered in the night. He looks up again, and there's his boy standing in the high tide, staring out into the sea.

 "They are burning the whales," the boy says.

 Daud wipes his hands on his trousers to clear them from bone dust. He walks over to the edge of the water until he feels the waves lapping at his toes. The boy stands a few meters away, his clothes and hair wet, like he's been washed ashore. Waif. Stranded, like a whale. Although the moon hangs fat and heavy between whispy shreds of clouds, the boy casts no shadow. 

 He turns his head, slowly. His dark eyes look like liquid night sky. Daud sees no reflection of light in them. They are inky void, and like a black hole, he feels drawn toward them.

 "I can feel a great age ending," the boy says. Daud cannot tell whether the wetness on the sharp curve of his cheekbones is the sea, or tears. It doesn't matter. He can see gooseflesh on the boy's white skin. He sees the blue of his lips, and the shiver in his gnarly fingers.

 Daud walks into the water. The boy remains where he is, even when Daud reaches out. He touches a human body; solid and firm. Ice cold.

 "You're freezing," me murmurs. He hopes the boy doesn't notice the brief hesitation, but the boy doesn't resist when Daud grabs his arm and pulls him closer.

 "You're warm," the boy mutters against his chest. It's not an unusual comment in itself, but still Daud moves his head just enough to look at him. The boy looks back up.

 "What is going on?" Daud asks.

 "I don't know," the Outsider answers. He closes the distance between them, pushing his face against Daud's chest. He seems small. "I'm scared, Daud."

 Daud rests his chin on top of the boy's head, holds him, and only nods.

 

* * *

 

 Eventually he picks the boy up and carries him out of the ocean. The Outsider is angular and slim; bones sticking out here and there. Daud carries him easily in his arms and has the weirdest urge to feed the boy, to nurse him to a healthy weight and figure. Now, when he glances down and sees the boy's chest rise and fall with his breath, he sees how thin and blue his skin looks stretched over his sternum, veins underneath purple.

 He carries him over the beach and inside, and the outlandish boy doesn't say a word all the while.

 Daud sets the Outsider down on his bed. Daud's shirt is soaked where the boy pressed against him, and he takes it off. The boy follows his movement with those empty eyes that seem darker than the gloom of the night. "You need to get out of these wet clothes," Daud says, crouching down. The Outsider watches as Daud peels the soaked, heavy leather boots from his thin ankles and feet. He puts them aside, and moves up to grip the boy's jacket, opening the buckles and buttons and strips that off, too. It's heavy, soaked with water. Daud, carefully, places it over the back of a chair, where it hangs dripping, _plip plip plip_.

 The Outsider sits on his bed, in a white shirt that is clinging to his shivering chest and back; his toes, purplish at the tip and the nails painted black, curled inward in the sheets. There is still gooseflesh prickling on his throat and cheeks, and Daud tries not to look down to where he sees but the tips of his nipples press against the wet fabric.

 Daud reaches out, and the Outsider flinches back.

 Daud sighs, his hand falling down limply.

 "I won't touch you, if you don't want me to," he mutters. "But you need to undress. I can give you dry clothes."

 The Oustider looks up cautiously. Daud does not meet his gaze but walks to his dresser. All the shirts he owns are coarse and stiff and feel not adequate for the handsome boy with the black eyes. He, finally, finds one, sitting at the very bottom, that feels a little softer. Daud can't remember owning it, cannot remember ever wearing it, but the buttons are from black pearl and the shoulders are slimmer than would fit him. He pulls it out and turns, just in time to see the Outsider slipping out of his clothes. 

 He's a white figure, almost illuminating the darkness of the night around him, and his face is in the shadow of his own light. Daud can only barely see his plump lips move; catching a glimpse of two pearly front teeth sucking the bottom lip in and biting down on it just so. Daud quickly tuns his gaze away, holding out the black shirt. 

 "This should fit," he says, counting the branch holes in the floor boards. He feels the fabric get pulled from his hands; there is no skin contact. He hears the fabric shuffle softly, and when the sound ends, he carefully looks up again. The shirt sits on the boy's shoulders like it was fitted for him, hanging just long enough to cover his thighs. The Outsider chose not to close the last two buttons of the collar. 

 Their eyes meet.

 "Thank you, Daud," the Outsider says. 

 For a deity as powerful as him, his boy seems so vulnerable, sitting on his bed with his legs bare. If he were someone else, or maybe just younger and bolder, he can't help but think, it would be so tempting—so many men and women wanted what he has, right now, Daud _knows_ , but he was always content just looking. He never dared, never wanted more than this.

 "Don't mention it," Daud finds himself answering, almost flinching at how trite it sounds, but the Outsider smiles softly. He sits back down on Daud's bed, gripping the blanket and just pulling it enough to cover his bare thighs. Daud walks over to him. "Are you still cold?" he asks, reaching out as he speaks to touch the Outsider's face. The boy tilts his head enough so that Daud's hand cups his cheek. It is still clammy to the touch, but even as coldness seeps into his fingers, Daud cannot pull his hand away. It stays there, on the Outsider's face. His thumb brushes softly over the sharp cheekbone and down to his lips, but doesn't touch them. He realizes there are freckles on the Outsider's cheeks, the bridge of his nose. Daud has never noticed before.

 "A little," the Outsider says softly.

 Daud pulls himself away and crouches down in front of the bed. The Outsider draws his legs in, but Daud grabs one of the slender feet. His toes are still red at the tips, thin and delicate. There's grime underneath the nails. Daud takes them between his hands, and they fill his palm just so as he rubs gently, trying to work up some heat. At first, the Outsider flinches away from the touch, his knee twitching, but then he relaxes and lets Daud rub and massage his feet. There is an alien, airy sound when Daud pushes his thumb between the Outsider's toes, and when he looks up, he's surprised to find that he made the boy laugh.

 "Are you ticklish?" he asks, bewildered. 

 "A little," the Outsider says, just as before. 

 Daud blinks, but unwilling to let the Outsider see his confusion, looks down again. There's something long forgotten bubbling up inside of him now, though; a juvenile playfulness Daud didn't know he still possessed. He rubs his thumb into the spaces between the Outsider's toes again, hoping to earn another suppressed sound.

 He succeeds.

 "You're doing this on purpose," the Outsider says, and Daud cannot say whether it's a mere observation or an accusation.

 But he smiles regardless and looks up. "I'm sorry," he says.

 "You're not," the Outsider says, pulling his feet back to the bed. His lips purse, pouting.

 Daud smiles at him and raises himself up. "You should sleep," he says. He doesn't know if gods even sleep, if the _Void_ sleeps, but he's been out of his depth with all of the situation and just goes along with it. It helps when the Outsider nods and lifts the blanket up to slip under it. Daud turns to sit by the table. He can sleep anywhere. Dunwall taught him.

 But the Outsider asks, "Will you sleep with me?"

 Daud slowly turns around and looks for the black eyes in the darkness.

 "I couldn't," he whispers.

 "Please," the Outsider says. Daud has never heard him ask for anything. Demand, yes; greedily taking whatever he fancied in this moment or another. But not like this. Not so... genuine.

 Not so scared to be refused. 

 There is nothing Daud could do. He walks over to the bed again. He's still only in his breeches, and he picks up the blanket. The boy nudges himself further against the wall to make room for Daud's broad form when Daud carefully slips into the bed. The cheap springs creak underneath the sudden increase of weight, and whether he likes it or not, the Outsider slides into the indent Daud creates.

 There's an awkward, silent moment or rearranging their bodies together; limbs brushing against each other, shifting until they are comfortable. The boy ends up on Daud's shoulder, his head comfortably resting in the hollow between Daud's chest and arm. Daud has his arm stretched away to the side, too afraid to touch the boy and drag him closer, but the Outsider takes his hand and pulls it in. It's the left.

 In the perfect darkness of the night, Daud's mark pulses softly in a cold blueish light when the Outsider drags a fingertip over Daud's skin. It changes color; from a clear, sparkling aquamarine to an electric yellow, and the air around it bristles and stirs with magic, tearing at the seams of reality as the magic follows its masters gentle touch. It hasn't been used in so long; lying dormant while Daud keeps a low profile. But the magic is still there, still powerful and begging to be used, and were it not for the calling of the rune, Daud would maybe not stepped to the beach this night, wouldn't have found him.

 "Does it hurt?" the boy asks.

 Daud shrugs a little. "Not anymore."

 "But it did hurt?"

 Daud looks against the darkness overhead. "Yes," he admits. "But that was a long time ago."

 There is silence shared between them. The Outsider continues to caress Daud's hand with his fingertip. He moves away from the upset mark, following instead the prominent veins under Daud's dusky skin; he gently pushes through the dark hair on his wrist, his fingers. It ventures to the palm, tracing the rough pads and calloused palm until it tickles. "It seems to me not to be a long time ago," the boy whispers. "But you were so young."

 Daud makes a fist, mark flaring faintly, and the boy pulls his fingers away. "Time is different for you," Daud says. 

 The Outsider raises himself up a little, so that he can look Daud in the eye. Even in the darkness, his eyes are darker. They seem to pull every bit of light towards them, swallowing it. "Have things changed, Daud?" he asks.

 Daud shakes his head a little. "No," he says. "They have not."

 "I don't think so, either."

 Daud feels more than he sees the Outsider lean closer, until there is breath ghosting over his lips. Daud feels a shiver run down his back, prickling his bones. His toes curl. 

 "You're still my favorite," the Outsider says against his lips. 

**Author's Note:**

> *throws this online at the speed of light before the DLC hits* ｡･ﾟﾟ･o（ｉДｉ）o･ﾟﾟ･｡


End file.
